This new device relates to the field of lawn mowing and grass trimming. More particularly, it relates to the field involving electric or gasoline powered cutting devices utilizing a rotary blade.
Electric and gasoline driven powered mowers are well known in the art throughout the United States. The basic structure of the lawn mower consists of a frame which has a handle attached to the top, which extends to the rear of the mower and wheels attached in a fixed straight line position to the sides of the frame. On top of the frame is an electric or gasoline powered engine that turns a shaft which in turn rotates a lawn mower blade lying beneath the upper surface of the main frame of the mower.
It has been known in the art to allow the wheels to be simultaneously lowered, thus raising the distance between the top of the grass and the cutting blade of the mower.
Krinke, U.S. Pat. No. 3,465,505 has added a feature which allows the wheels to slant from their normal perpendicular position with respect to the ground. These wheels are capable of forming an oblique angle with the ground, thus making it easier to use the mower when cutting on an incline or hill.
Pushing a lawn mower on the side of a hill is difficult and often dangerous even when the wheels can be adjusted to an oblique angle.
Bowditch, U.S. Pat. No. 4,942,726 invented a conversion kit to replace the front, straight line wheels of a lawn mower with casters.
Buigne, U.S. Pat. No. 3,382,653 combined straight line wheels with a caster and even though his invention has steerable wheels, neither inventor has overcome the limitation of the conventional straight line movement to offer unlimited and free wheeling movement within 360.degree.. The instant invention does.
Keesee, U.S. Pat. No. 3,702,016 invented an extendable and rotatable mower handle for the express purpose of providing a compact unit to reduce storage space. The instant invention incorporates an extendable and rotatable handle with other features to create an operational unit.
The difficulty and danger of maneuvering a lawn mower on the side of a hill are eliminated by the instant invention, while maintaining as one of two modes, a straight line mower.
It is the object of this invention to provide a lawn mower with two distinct modes, that of a conventional straight line mower and a highly maneuverable free wheeling mower which can be pulled or pushed in any direction within 360.degree.. The transfer from one mode to the other maybe performed in a couple of minutes.